Reaching Infinity
by Scyphi
Summary: The chase has ended. Now it's time to say goodbye.


Reaching Infinity

Matt stepped out onto balcony of Control Central, then paused to lean against the doorframe and to watch the two girls before him stare out into the vastness of Cyberspace.

"I'd ask what you two are thinking, but I think it's already pretty clear," he remarked aloud.

Jackie and Inez glanced solemnly back at him, and both jointly sighed.

"It's not like it's any big secret," Inez remarked flatly. "So…you coming to join us?"

Matt was silent for a moment. "Yeah, I am."

He joined them at the railing, and stared out at the green-black glow of the dimension the three of them had come to know so well. They were silent for a few moments.

"It's really is beautiful, Cyberspace," Matt remarked finally. "It's mysterious, mystical, not without its dangers, but filled with so many good people…"

"Well, get a good look at it while it lasts, then," Jackie grumbled negatively.

"Now Jackie," Inez began, glancing at her friend, "I know how you feel about all of this, and I don't like it any more than you do, but…don't think about it like that. Think of it as…the final chapter of a good adventure."

"And a salute to a job well done," Matt added, holding his hand out as if giving a toast. "Cheers, Cyberspace, and here's to your bright and good future. May it always continue to be cheery and peaceful for many cyberyears to come."

Jackie was forced to grin at the comments of her friends. "Yeah, I know," she admitted. "In a way, I suppose I should feel happy for Cyberspace. At long last, things are turning around for them. Hacker has been defeated. Motherboard has been cured of her virus. Chaos has been put to an end. The future is so bright for Cyberspace now."

"And we helped make it happen," Inez added. "We should feel proud for ourselves for our successes."

"Then why does this victory seem so empty?" Matt asked rhetorically.

Jackie answered the question anyway. "Because this is the last time we'll get to have this chance to see Cyberspace."

Another moment of silence fell upon the group.

"This is so unfair," Jackie grumbled. "We've helped give them this, and how do they repay us? By sending us away. Is that really the thanks we should we be getting, after everything we've done for them, after everything we've been through?"

"Well," Inez said slowly and uncomfortably, "Looking at it logically, we technically don't belong here. In fact, if it hadn't been for Hacker in the first place, we would've never been brought here in the first place."

"Hacker was the only reason we were here, I guess," Matt said, and sighed. "Never thought I'd say this, but I guess we do kind of owe him that much, in a weird and bizarre kind of way. Not that I'd wish the likes of Hacker on anybody, though."

"We should've known this was going to happen someday," Inez continued. "That the time would come that Hacker would be gone and that the citizens of Cyberspace would no longer need us." She paused for a moment. "But to be honest…I never really thought this day would come. I saw it like counting to infinity. You can count for as long as you'd want, but you'd never reach it. And here in Cyberspace, I thought Hacker would always be there to cause trouble, and we would always be there to stop him. But now I'm realizing that we…" She trailed off.

So Matt finished the thought. "…that we reached infinity."

Inez nodded silently. "Maybe it was in denial. Maybe I just didn't want to face that reality until I had no choice. Or maybe I really just never thought that the end would one day come. But it was always there, that moment of time when it all came to an end. The time when they would no longer need us. And I meant what I said when I said that we don't belong here. We're the foreign element. The thing that, if one isn't carefully, just as quickly mess things up for everyone."

"Is that all we are then?" Jackie asked aloud, a little offended by that thought. "Foreign elements?"

"Not intentionally," Inez admitted. "I don't mean it to demean ourselves, it's just…no matter how you look at it this is something we can't change. If things are allowed to go someplace where they just don't belong…bad things can happen whether or not it was intended or not. We don't really have a choice in that matter."

"No, we don't have a choice," Jackie agreed. "That's exactly the problem."

"And now it's goodbye," Matt conclude and sighed heavily. "You know, I think I see what you're getting at with your line of thinking, Inez but…I kind of have to disagree. Maybe we aren't native to Cyberspace but after everything that has happened here, I just can't see us continuing to at the very least _visit_ causing any harm. I mean, we've been coming here for _years_ now, and we haven't caused any harm. In fact, we've caused a great deal of good. We've made things better here, we have friends here! Heck, we're practically heroes here! This has nothing to do with the fact that we don't belong here, because I dare say we've earned that right, yet they're sending us away anyway."

Jackie fiddled with her fingers for a moment. "I guess it's just a case of all good things have to come to an end eventually, then," she muttered.

"It's not like we could always be here forever anyway," Inez added in her usual logistic manner.

They fell silent again to dwell on these thoughts for a few moments.

"But what if we haven't truly reached the end yet?" Matt asked aloud. "What if we haven't reached infinity, as it were? What if there's still more out there for us to reach, we just don't know it yet? What if there's another chapter to this adventure that we haven't opened yet?"

Inez and Jackie glanced at him questioningly, and then they all turned to look back out at Cyberspace, caught up in the implications of that thought, and its possibilities.

"I guess one day we'll find out," Inez concluded finally, and had to grin at the thought nonetheless.

In fact the thought cheered all three of them up a fair bit.

"And hey," Matt continued finally, wrapping an arm around both Jackie and Inez in a friendly hug, "even if this _is_ the end, at least we'll still have each other, no matter what, right?"

Both of the girls grinned at him.

"Right," they chorused together.

They fell silent one final time and continued to get their last good look at the expanse that was Cyberspace, trying to capture as much as they could to keep forever in their memories, before the time they were dreading finally came, and Digit arrived sheepishly and withdrawn at the door.

"Hey, uh, we're ready," he announced calmly and solemnly, knowing what this meant.

The three kids that had been friend with the cybird for so long, nodded, and moved to follow him back into Control Central, where they would be sent home, this time for good. But before they left, they glanced back at Cyberspace one last time, but this time with a slightly different mindset. The chase may be over now, but nonetheless, they would forever remember what that chase was like to experience, and they would respect it by missing it accordingly.

There were several things they could have said as a final farewell as they left, but it was Inez who summed it up the best.

"Goodbye Cyberspace. We'll miss you."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I found out today that Cyberchase as a series has more or less come to an end, in the sense that the production crew have announced that they are not producing anymore new episodes simply because they've plum run out of ideas, which actually doesn't surprise me, because the show has actually been showing just such a thing in recent seasons, so I suppose it was just a matter of time. That said, the producers have discreetly indicated that they are still working on something to release soon, so while it might not be new episodes, it might still be something worth checking out.<em>

_Either way, I felt the desire to address the end of the series anyway, so I wrote this little oneshot, a brief, impromptu, and in-the-spur-of-the-moment kind of thing as is typical of my oneshots. In reality, I don't think it would actually come to this; even if Hacker was finally defeated, I expect Matt, Jax, and Inez would continue coming to Cyberspace for years to come, but that didn't fit with the theme I was looking for, and anyway, it was fun to explore the idea where that **wasn't** the case. Beyond that, it actually not that much, and is purposely open-ended. It doesn't refer to any specific past episodes during the course of the series, and is in fact very dependent on the fact that you're already familiar with the show. It also has no connection whatsoever to any of my past Cyberchase works. Nonetheless, it was kind of fun to come back and revisit the gang for the first time in two years. :)_

_Anyway, enjoy, and may we fanficition writers not reach infinity ourselves any time soon. ;)  
><em>


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